Mormonism in America

[treemom]

My two cents on why Mormonism makes me uncomfortable:

Mr. Beaufort grew up Mormon and left the church for a myriad of reasons, but the biggest one was the therapy (once a week for quite some time) that his Bishop and parents forced him to go through for a "masturbation addiction". He was 16 and constantly under pressure to "break his addiction" so he could go to the temple. He was given advice that ranged from "think about other things", "distract yourself and have a sandwich" and- my personal favourite - "tie your hand to the bed post". At some point along the line, he decided that this was ridiculous and started on the path towards becoming an agnostic/atheist. Along the way, he started doing research about the history of the church and now is an avowed ex-mormon. His family still hasn't forgiven him (or me, because they blame me for luring him away with my ebil temptations of sex and independent thinking).

I grew up in a very liberal, protestant church and the amount of private information that he was expected to share with his bishop always baffled me. I had never come across anything like it. Nothing was ever too personal- earnings, tithing, feelings, thoughts, sexual activity. And to convince him to share all of this, there was the constant promise of a temple recommend as a reward. Because after all, without a temple recommend, you won't be joined with your family to be with them forever!1!11

I don't know how much Mitt Romney is required to share with the church, or what the church can withhold from him if they decide they don't like his policies. But given my experience with this sort of thing, I am a bit touchy about LDS leadership and the amount of control that they try to exert over their member's lives.

I think personal experience is always going to frame how you feel about things.

I will say though the big difference is this is codified for LDS but many conservative churches feel that way. I stopped seeking therapy at liberty university because it was before hippa and the therapist at the student clinic was turning over my records to the university.

[ADoyle90815]

Gizmola, faith is intertwined with culture. For a lot of people, giving up their faith is the same thing as giving up their culture. It's not that you are invested so much in the exact theology, but you are invested in your history.

That's true, in fact one way to describe Mormonism is that it's a tribe, as it's also a culture, not just a religion. Even if one stops practicing, the thing that stops them from resigning their membership is that it would mean giving up their culture, especially if the rest of the family still believes. I think the fact that it's a culture as well as strong indoctrination makes it less likely that a woman raised in the church is going to leave it. One reason that women don't leave the church as often as men are, is that they're indoctrinated from birth with the belief that if they're married, her husband will be the one to call her by her temple name to resurrect her. If a woman dies without being married, she will be "sealed" to someone in the afterlife, without knowing the type of person she's "sealed" to.

[MissBeaufort]

I think personal experience is always going to frame how you feel about things.

I do try to keep that in mind, usually. If it wasn't for that I'd spin off on an angry rant about Mormonism and how much it frustrates me on a practical level - theology aside - every time it came up. So I try to explain the background a little before I even start talking. I come off as really angry for no reason, otherwise.

I will say though the big difference is this is codified for LDS but many conservative churches feel that way. I stopped seeking therapy at liberty university because it was before hippa and the therapist at the student clinic was turning over my records to the university.

I definitely agree, there's lots of problems with the Mormon church that can be generalized to more conservative churches in general. I'm so sorry that your university was doing that, that's heinous.

[MissBeaufort]

Oh, I understand what you're saying. If I decided to write The Book of Gizmola because I said it was divinely revealed to me through the rainbow unicorn that glided into my pasture while the sun rose at midnight and the stars illuminated the moon I would fully expect to be involuntarily committed instead of followed. Or at least more heavily medicated.

I just find it interesting that the longer the span of time from a "holy revelation" of some sort people start giving it more credence. Plus, their own background informs their suspension of disbelief in regards to their own religious beliefs but feels no problem seeing the absurdity in others. I have never read history of religion closely enough to know if it's true, but I gather the Romans thought Christians were batshit crazy, etc.

I guess as we've learned more about the universe, science, evolution, etc. I am still bewildered as to the need for religion as well as how people can be really, really logical and rational about everything else - in fact, see the absurdity of blind faith in others, but still feel the need to cling to their own brand of faith. Perhaps I'm rambling - I guess, in a nutshell, I don't understand the concept of faith at all.

I definitely agree with this - the older it is, the more valid people generally seem to feel it is. The problem with Mormonism isn't just that it's new, though, it's that the Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, as well as the early Mormons in general, went out of their way to document freakin' everything. There's a lot of religious emphasis on keeping journals in LDS culture, so that means there's a lot of primary sources floating around. The Mormons also had a tendency to get into trouble wherever they went, so they are all over contemporary court records and that sort of thing. And even better (or worse, depending on your perspective) we still have most of this documentation. So... The Bible has this sort of shrouded-in-time feel to it, whereas we know that Joseph Smith interpreted the Book of Mormon by looking into a hat because someone bothered to write that down. We know that he married a 14 year old and we know that he ran for the President of the United States. It's hard to gain the legitimacy that comes from seeming ancient and wise when we know that he once threw a bugle at someone when they disagreed with his choice to move camp.

[charizbarb]

I definitely agree with this - the older it is, the more valid people generally seem to feel it is. The problem with Mormonism isn't just that it's new, though, it's that the Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, as well as the early Mormons in general, went out of their way to document freakin' everything. There's a lot of religious emphasis on keeping journals in LDS culture, so that means there's a lot of primary sources floating around. The Mormons also had a tendency to get into trouble wherever they went, so they are all over contemporary court records and that sort of thing. And even better (or worse, depending on your perspective) we still have most of this documentation. So... The Bible has this sort of shrouded-in-time feel to it, whereas we know that Joseph Smith interpreted the Book of Mormon by looking into a hat because someone bothered to write that down. We know that he married a 14 year old and we know that he ran for the President of the United States. It's hard to gain the legitimacy that comes from seeming ancient and wise when we know that he once threw a bugle at someone when they disagreed with his choice to move camp.

That's a really interesting point. It's like, no one would ever write a Da Vinci Code type book about Mormonism because we know it all already. The nearest we got was Twilight and hardly anyone is really aware of the Mormon link to those books anyway.